Non-Formal Registration

What is Non-Formal Learning

Non-formal learning occurs when one participates in organised activities. This type of learning is intentional and may lead to certification.

Parent

Why should you encourage your child to participate?

When your child takes part in an activity, you are ensuring that your child develops his/her personality by:

enriching own knowledge;
increasing the skills
gettting to know more about oneself; and
sharing ideas with others and make new friends.

How can your child participate in an activity by an accredited Service Provider?

You can find a list of different accredited Service Providers when you click here.

Service Provider

Is the service you are offering part of non-formal?

Yes: if you are organising an activity such as a performance, adventure trail, or other type of activity.

No: if you are offering Private Tuition.

If yes, how can you become an accredited service provider? Click here

To view the list of accredited service providers click here.

Overview of Non-Formal Certification

The definition of non-formal education:

“Non-formal learning is learning that has been acquired in addition or alternatively to formal learning. In some cases, it is also structured according to educational and training arrangements, but more flexible. It usually takes place in community-based settings, the workplace and through the activities of civil society organisations. Through the recognition, validation and accreditation process, non-formal learning can also lead to qualifications and other recognitions.”

The tension between the Universal and the Individual, tradition and modernity, long term and short term are just some of the reasons why the certification of non-formal learning based on the four pillars of UNESCO is being considered. The aim is not to overburden the curriculum, but to add more facets to the way students can be developed as overall human beings enabling them to utilise transverse skills and prepare for the future.

The National Curriculum Framework (NCF) document states that if Maltese education is to succeed in its tasks, the curriculum as its core should be restructured with clear aims of citizen engagement, employability and lifelong learning skills and competences. These skills and competences can all be mapped around the four pillars of learning: learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together, and learning to be.

The ‘Four Pillars of Education’ were originally set out in a report for UNESCO by the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-First Century chaired by Jacques Delors (UNESCO, 1996). These pillars underline the very breadth and depth of UNESCO’s vision of education within and beyond schooling. Education, the report holds, must be organized around four fundamental types of learning throughout a person’s life.

The Four Pillars can be summed up as follows:

Learning to know: ‘Learning to know’ lays the foundations of learning throughout life. This pillar refers to the basic knowledge that we need to be able to understand our environment and to live in dignity. It is also about arousing curiosity, allowing us to experience the pleasures of research and discovery. It faces us with the challenge of combining a sufficiently broad education with the in-depth investigation of selected subjects. Learning to know implies learning how to learn by developing one’s concentration, memory skills and ability to think.
Learning to do: ‘Learning to do’ refers to the acquisition of practical skills, but also to an aptitude for teamwork and initiative, and a readiness to take risks. As such, this pillar is about the competence of putting what we have learned into practice so as to act creatively on our environment. A variety of situations, often unforeseeable, is bound to arise. Learning to do enables us to turn our knowledge into effective innovations.
Learning to live together: ‘Learning to live together’ is the pillar that the UNESCO Commission emphasizes more than any other. It refers first of all to developing an understanding of others through dialogue leading to empathy, respect, and appreciation. Yet if we are to understand others, we must first know ourselves. ‘Learning to live together’ is also about recognizing our growing interdependence, about experiencing shared purposes, and about implementing common projects and a joint future. Only then will it be possible to manage the inevitable conflicts in a peaceful way.
Learning to be: ‘Learning to be’ is founded on the fundamental principle that education needs to contribute to the all-round development of each individual. This pillar deals with the broadening of care for each aspect of the personality. It deals with giving us the freedom of thought, feeling, and imagination that we need to act.

The competences acquired through UNESCO’s Four Pillars of Education using the Twenty-First Century Skills were further developed according to the levels of the Malta Qualifications Framework (MQF) with the intention to link these competences to the same framework used for formal education as well as to the European education scenario.

Please find attached the grid we have worked on which maps the above pillars to the MQF levels.